Collaborative Legal Blog & News

Split Opinion? Two Different Opinions Issued in Gitmo Case

Last year a federal judge ordered the release of a Guantanamo detainee, but the following day the judge’s order disappeared from the online docket, only to reappear days later heavily edited and altered. The government has now claimed responsibility, saying that the first version had not been cleared for release and it contained classified information.

The Department of Justice says that it gave the judge two options: withhold the entire opinion on the basis of classified information or rewrite the opinion without the classified information. The new opinion, however, also contains factual differences from the first opinion.